JUNE  14,  1919 


COMPLIMENTS  OF 

SCRIPPS  INSTlTimOK 
FOR 

BIOLOGICAL  RESEARCH 

BULLETIN 

OF  THE 


SCRIPPS  INSTITUTION  FOR  BIOLOGICAL  RESEARCH 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  PACIFIC 


BY 

WILLIAM  E.  RITTER 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  PACIFIC 

By  william  E.  RITTER 


‘‘The  New  Pacific,”  “The  New  Par  East,”  “The  Problem  of  the 
Pacific”  and  phrases  of  like  import  have  been  much  in  vogue  during 
the  past  few  decades.  To  different  groups  of  persons  they  have  had 
different  meanings.  To  the  group  whose  interests  are  anthropological 
in  the  technical  sense,  they  connote  the  meeting  and  commingling  of 
dominant  types  of  mankind  on  a  scale  and  in  a  fashion  not  occurring 
before  in  the  history  of  mankind. 

To  those  interested  in  problems  of  civilized  society  taken  broadly, 
they  envisage  such  a  coming  together  and  testing  of  the  relative  merits 
of  types  of  culture  as  the  world  has  not  hitherto  seen.  To  statesman¬ 
ship  which  looks  beyond  as  well  as  within  political  boundaries,  the 
phrases  connote  very  large  questions  of  international  politics  and  law. 
To  the  largest  and  most  powerful  group  of  all,  that  which  stands  for 
commerce  and  finance,  the  expressions  mean  above  everything  else,  the 
issue  as  to  what  nation  and  what  industrial  and  monetary  interests 
shall  dominate  the  Pacific  area  to  the  end  of  becoming  the  chief  bene¬ 
ficiaries  of  the  vast  wealth,  actual  and  potential,  of  the  region. 

But  there  is  still  another  group  to  which  the  phrases  have,  or  ought 
to  have,  yet  another  primary  meaning.  This  is  the  group  of  broadly 
observant  and  careful  reflective  naturalists. 

The  point  I  want  to  make  necessitates  a  few  sentences  on  what 
should  be  understood  by  the  term  “naturalist.” 

A  true  naturalist  is  one  who  accepts  the  external  world  in  its 
totality  without  cavil  or  preconception  and  makes  it  his  life-business 
to  describe  what  he  finds  with  the  utmost  truthfulness,  and  to  discover 
as  much  as  possible  of  the  law  pervading  the  endless  bald  facts  which 
his  descriptions  have  recorded.  The  naturalist  is  the  preeminently  - 
rational  variety  of  the  human  species.  He  is  preeminently  rational, 

I  say,  because  he  considers  himself  as  one  who  not  only  applies  his 
reason  to  the  problems  of  man  and  the  rest  of  nature,  but  who  learns 
how  the  parts  of  nature  are  related,  and  therein  discovers  the  reason 
in  nature.  According  to  the  naturalist  “Reason”  does  not  ‘Horm  the 
world,”  as  metaphysical  idealism  would  have  it.  Rather  every  human 


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being  recognizes  some  measure  of  unity  in  the  world.  That  by  means 
of  which  this  unity  is  perceived  the  naturalist  calls  man’s  reason; 
while  that  about  the  world  which  makes  it  amenable  to  such  percep¬ 
tion  he  calls  the  world’s  reason,  or  the  rationality  of  nature. 

In  the  presence  of  stupendous  natural  phenomena  like  those  of  the 
ocean  all  people  in  all  ages  have  been  powerfully  wrought  upon 
through  their  imaginations  and  emotions.  Whether  cultured  white 
or  untutored  black,  Mongolian  or  Polynesian,  Malay  or  Aleut,  none 
escape.  The  sea’s  mighty  power,  its  beneficence  and  its  cruelty,  its 
mystery,  its  incitement  to  reverence  and  to  superstition — he  who  has 
no  experience  of  the  primal  instincts  involved  in  these,  or  having  such 
experience  tries  to  thrust  it  aside  as  infantile  and  outgrown,  is  in¬ 
capable  of  treating  intelligently  and  usefully  any  of  the  major 
problems  of  the  ocean  and  man  in  relation  to  it.  In  just  these 
primordial  attributes  of  the  human  spirit,  teacher,  administrator  and 
industrial  leader  may  stand  on  common  ground  with  sailor  and  fisher¬ 
man  and  aboriginal  of  whatever  race. 

But  what  possibilities  of  degradation  and  misery  as  well  as  of 
exaltation  and  beneficence  are  germinal  in  these  deep,  ancient  human 
attributes !  Hence  the  transcendent  importance  of  reason  in  the  slow, 
laborious,  progress  of  civilization,  its  true  role  being,  never  to  fail  to 
notice,  not  to  supplant  or  suppress  imagination  and  emotion,  but  to 
supplement  and  guide  them,  to  make  their  beneficence  more  certain, 
more  continuous,  more  enduring. 

The  naturalist  would  be  untrue  to  his  instincts,  to  the  traditions 
of  his  calling,  and  to  his  training,  if  he  viewed  such  a  problem  as  that 
of  the  Pacific  in  any  lesser  light  than  that  of  the  fundamental  nature 
of  man  and  of  the  geographic  area  concerned. 

Viewed  from  this  starting  point  it  is  seen  that  the  Problem  of  the 
Pacific  during  the  four  centuries  of  its  existence,  is  an  incontestible 
refutation  of  the  modern  doctrine  that  an  all-sufficient  interpretation 
of  human  life  can  be  reached  on  an  economic  basis. 

Nothing  is  written  more  legibly  on  the  pages  of  history  than  that 
the  mighty  movement  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries,  one 
of  the  remarkable  occurrences  of  which  was  Magellan’s  voyage  right 
through  the  middle  of  the  little  known  Atlantic  and  less  known  Pacific 
oceans,  was  at  least  as  much  a  manifestation  of  human  curiosity  and 
the  spirit  of  adventure,  as  it  was  of  greed  for  material  gain.  Nor  can 
an  open  minded  reader  of  human  character  and  history  fail  to  recog¬ 
nize  the  religious  element — desire  to  save  souls  and  exalt  the  Church 
— as  also  fundamental. 

The  spices  of  the  Indies,  the  silks  of  Cathay,  and  the  gold  of  the 
Americas !  Not  a  doubt  about  the  lure  of  these ;  but  the  strength  of 
even  that  lure  was  in  no  small  measure  sentimental  and  romantic.  Nor 


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ca,ii  the  thirst  for  knowledge — positive,  objective  knowledge — be  put 
down  as  a  mere  subsidiary  factor  in  the  great  achievements  of  the  era. 
He  who  would  subordinate  Magellan’s  determination  to  test  his  well- 
calculated  hypothesis  that  the  new  waters  Balboa  had  seen  at  Darien, 
were  the  same  he  himself  had  seen  at  Malacca;  and  the  same  navi¬ 
gator’s,  attempt,  at  the  cost  of  his  own  life,  to  make  the  natives  of  the 
Philippines  Christian  by  force  of  arms^ — he,  I  say,  who  would  assess 
these  motives  of  Magellan  as  less  powerful  than  his  cupidity,  is  no 
trustworthy  narrator  of  human  acts,  no  true  interpreter  of  human 
nature. 

Even  the  famous  pirates  and  buccaneers,  Drake,  Cavendish, 
Lolonnois,  Morgan  and  the  rest,  were  not  as  exclusively  riches-seekers 
as  economists  of  the  modern  school  would  make  them.  Thirst  for 
adventure  and  blood  was  more  than  thirst  for  gold  with  these  men, 
as  has  often  been  said. 

And  such  semi-scientific  voyages  as  those  of  Cook  and  Bering,  and 
such  fully  scientific  explorations  as  those  of  the  ‘‘Beagle,”  the  U.  S. 
exploring  expedition,  and  the  “Challenger;”  and  such  missionary 
efforts  as  those  of  Junipera  Serra,  of  John  Williams,  of  Lorimer  Pison, 
of  Ivan  Veniaminof  and  of  Wm.  Duncan,  are  not  a  whit  less  funda- 
mental,  even  if  somewhat  less  bulky,  a  part  of  the  Problem  than  were 
the  operations  of  the  Kussian  American  Company,  the  Alaska  Com¬ 
mercial  Company,  the  Deutsche  Handels-und  Plantagen-Gesellschaft 
der  Sudsee-Insen  zu  Hamburg,  and  the  Colonial  Sugar  Refining  Com¬ 
pany. 

The  problem  of  the  Pacific  like  the  older  problem  of  the  Atlantic 
and  the  still  older  one  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  of  every  other 
definitive  part  of  the  earth,  rests  on  what  can  be  marked  off  into  five 
approximately  equal  sectors  of  the  human  animal’s  nature:  (1)  that 
of  his  physical  nature  requiring  nutriment,  clothing,  and  other 
material  things;  (2)  that  of  his  emotional  and  imaginative  nature, 
urging  to  objective  adventure;  (3)  that  of  his  religious  and  philan¬ 
thropic  nature  expressing  itself  in  placative,  votive  and  adorative  acts 
toward  the  mysterious  forces  of  the  universe  a  part  of  which  he  recog¬ 
nizes  himself  to  be,  and  which  work  alternately  for  his  benefit  and 
injury;  (4)  that  of  his  rational  nature  demanding  infallible  objective 
knowledge  of  himself  and  the  enveloping  universe;  and  (5)  that  of 
his  social  nature,  manifesting  itself  in  political  and  institutional 
organization  and  performance. 

The  next  move  toward  our  goal  will  be  by  way  of  a  single  small  sub¬ 
division  of  the  general  problem.  Take  the  fur  industry  of  the  extreme 
North  Pacific,  letting  the  fur  seal  question  stand  central  in  it,  as  it 
does  naturally.  The  five  sectors  of  man’s  nature  indicated  above  stand 
out  clearly  in  this  subproblem. 


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The  existence  far  to  the  north  of  numbers  of  mammalian  species 
the  pelts  of  which  were  valuable  for  human  clothing  first  became 
known  to  the  civilized  world  in  the  mid-eighteenth  century  through  the 
explorations  of  the  navigator  Vitus  Bering  and  the  naturalist  G.  H. 
Steller,  their  efforts  being  a  manifestation  of  Russians  spirit  of 
curiosity  afid  adventure  and  desire  for  geographic  knowledge.  We 
know  positively  that  neither  desire  for  lands  nor  trade  cut  much  figure 
with  the  Russian  authorities  who  set  these  explorations  afoot. 

The  story  of  economic  utilization  and  destruction  which  followed 
in  the  wake  of  the  discoveries,  and  continued  a  full  century,  though 
highly  illuminating,  must  be  passed  by  except  for  three  points:  (1) 
the  almost  complete  extermination  of  some  of  the  richest  fur  bearing 
animals,  notably  the  sea  otter,  as  a  consequence  of  unintelligent, 
uncontrolled,  rapacious  hunting  and  trading;  (2)  the  gradual  coming 
in  of  scientific  knowledge  and  political  action  to  regulate  the  industry 
and  save  from  destruction  something  of  this  remaining  source  of ' 
wealth;  and  (3)  the  humanitarian  efforts,  first  purely  religious  but 
later  political,  on  behalf  of  the  natives,  Esquimos  and  Indians.  The 
economic  operations  were  as  ruthlessly  destructive  of  the  natives  as 
of  the  fur  bearing  animals.  In  consequence,  not  only  humanitarian 
and  religious  motives  led  to  efforts  for  the  people,  but  the  indispensa¬ 
bility  of  the  Esquimos  particularly  as  laborers  for  prosecuting  the 
industries,  worked  to  the 'same  end. 

Confining  ourselves  now  to  the  fur  seal  question,  attention  is  called 
to  what  may  be  designated  as  the  era  of  pure  economism  in  the  history 
of  the  question.  This  era  extends  from  the  discovery  of  the  Pribilof 
islands  and  their  seal  herds  in  1786,  to  1910,  the  year  of  expiration  of 
the  North  American  Company’s  government-secured  monopoly  of  the 
business,  and  the  assumption  by  the  government  of  the  United  States 
of  immediate  charge  and  operation  of  the  property.  The  period  is 
described  as  one  of  pure  economism,  from  the  fact  that  during  this 
time  the  policy  was  based  on  the  familiar  belief  that  economic  con¬ 
siderations  are  paramount ;  that  other  factors  which  necessarily  come 
in,  as  political,  scientific  and  humanitarian,  are  yet  wholly  secondary 
and  subordinate  to  economic  factors. 

As  might  have  been  expected,  failure,  even  economic  failure, 
viewing  the  matter  broadly,  resulted.  Regulative  measures  for  killing 
seals  while  they  were  on  the  islands  were  adopted  and  carried  out  with 
considerable  faithfulness,  but  they  were  based  on  inadequate  natural 
history  knowledge  of  the  animals,  so  proved  only  partially  effective 
for  conserving  the  herds.  Pelagic  sealing,  seal  killing,  that  is,  while 
the  animals  are  on  the  high  seas,  came  into  vogue,  and  was  especially 
disastrous  in  that  it  destroyed  breeding  females  and  young  as  well  as 
males. 


A 


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The  total  result  was  that  in  the  nineties  of  the  last  century  it  became 
certain  that  unless  a  radically  different  course  in  managing  the  herds 
was  adopted,  their  economic  extinguishment  was  only  a  question  of  a 
few  years. 

Our  national  government  resolved  to  take  the  problem  seriously 
in  hand.  Commendably  it  began  by  making  a  scientific  study  of  not 
only  the  American  but  all  the  northern  fur  seal  herds,  such  as  had 
never  before  been  approached.  The  report  of  the  investigating  com¬ 
mission  of  1896  and  1897  headed  by  the  distinguished  naturalist  and 
administrator,  David  Starr  Jordan,  is  a  model  of  what  a  combined 
scientific  and  economic  report  should  be.  It  is  noteworthy  that  the 
investigating  commission  was  composed  of  British  as  well  as  American 
scientists,  this  because  an  important  aspect  of  the  problem,  that  of 
pelagic  sealing,  involved  Canadian,  English,  and  Japanese  interests 
as  well  as  those  of  the  United  States. 

The  most  important  results  so  far  attained  by  the  new  course  pur¬ 
sued  by  the  United  States  Government,  the  initial  move  in  which  was 
this  investigation,  are  :  (1)  the  international  convention  of  1911  between 
the  United  States,  Great  Britain,  Japan,  and  Russia,  by  which  pelagic 
seal  killing  is  entirely  stopped  during  the  continuance  of  the  treaty 
so  far  as  the  citizens  of  these  countries  are  concerned;  (2)  the  demon¬ 
stration  that  depleted  seal  herds  can  be  rehabilitated,  and  what 
measures  consonant  with  economic  profits  are  necessary  to  insure  the 
perpetuity  of  the  herds;  and,  (3)  the  decisive  wisdom  of  our  Gov¬ 
ernment  in  undertaking  to  handle  the  whole  situation  on  the  basis 
of  scientific  knowledge  of  the  seals,  humanitarian  treatment  of  the 
natives,  and  due  regard  for  the  internationally  economic  and  political 
interests  involved. 

But  it  would  be  erroneous  to  suppose  that  the  fur  seal  problem  is 
thus  solved  wholly  and  for  all  time. 

Although  there  is  no  doubt  about  the  efficacy  of  the  international 
convention  so  far  as  it  has  been  tested,  its  real  test  is  yet  to  come — 
began  indeed  last  year,  1918.  Its  operation  from  now  till  its  self- 
determined  expiration  in  1926  will  be  crucial ;  and  just  as  in  its  origin 
and  present  nature  it  is  international,  so  the  detailed  watch  over  its 
operation  ought  to  be  international. 

But  it  is  in  the  possibilities,  indeed  probabilities  for  the  more  distant 
future  of  the  fur  seal  problem  that  interest  in  it  reaches  its  highest 
level. 

Weighty  considerations  can  be  brought  forward  to  support  the 
belief  that  if  the  peoples  of  the  Pacific  area,  along  with  those  of  the 
rest  of  the  world,  continue  to  advance  in  civilization  the  Pacific  Ocean 
in  common  with  the  other  waters  of  the  earth  will,  as  geographical 
features,  and  as  producers  of  animals  and  plants  essential  to  civilized 


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man,  play  an  incalculably  larger  role  in  that  advance  than  they  have 
liitherto. 

Now  these  seals  along  with  other  marine  mammals  would  almost 
surely  be  important  elements  in  this  larger  role.  As  indicated  above, 
the  seals,  at  any  rate,  are  demonstrably  susceptible  of  a  sort  of  culti¬ 
vation.  At  the  same  time  that  they  are  being  utilized  for  a  variety 
of  human  needs,  their  numbers  can  be  augmented.  Their  productive¬ 
ness  can  be  made  an  inereasing  quantity.  So  far  as  the  northern  fur 
seal  herds  are  concerned,  the  limit  of  such  increase  appears  to  be 
the  space  available  for  the  animals  during  the  breeding  period.  It  is 
not  a  question  of  food  supply,  but  of  living  room,  this  from  the 
peculiar  habits  of  the  animals  in  choosing  small,  rocky  islands  as  breed¬ 
ing  places.  But  certainly  as  regards  the  American,  or  Pribilof 
Island  herds,  and  probably  as  regards  the  Russian,  or  Commander 
Island  herds  and  the  Japanase,  or  Kuril  Island  herds,  there  is  room 
for  expansion  beyond  what  was  utilized  before  commercial  depletion 
began. 

But  were  a  great  augmentation  of  the  herds  to  take  place,  an 
aspect  of  the  problem  which  has  hitherto  received  little  attention 
would  almost  certainly  become  prominent.  '  This  is  the  question  of 
the  food  of  the  seals  during  the  half-year  of  their  long  oceanic  journey- 
ings  off  the  North  American  and  Asiatic  coasts.  That  the  American 
seals  feed  to  some  extent,  while  in  the  far  north,  on  salmon  is  certain. 
But  concerning  their  food  while  they  are  off  the  coast  of  Canada  and 
the  Pacific  states  little  is  known.  Are  they  not  likely  to  utilize  the 
most  abundant  fishes  of  these  waters,  the  herrings,  sardines,  mackerels, 
etc.  ?  But  these  are  just  the  fish  groups  which  are  becoming  the  bases 
of  some  of  the  world’s  important  fisheries.  At  any  rate  even  if  the 
seals  do  not  feed  directly  and  extensively  on  these  economieally 
valuable  fishes,  it  is  inevitable  that  their  food  habits  should  be  closely 
involved  with  the  lives  of  the  fishes — so  inextricable  do  we  now  know 
the  ‘‘web  of  life”  to  be  in  the  waters,  as  well  as  upon  the  lands  of 
the  earth. 

So  starting  with  a  small,  seemingly  detached  piece  of  that  aspect 
of  the  problem  of  the  Pacific  which  concerns  the  ocean  as  an  organic 
producer,  rather  than  as  a  commercial  and  military  highway  merely, 
we  are  led  on  naturally  into  the  problem  of  the  biology  of  the  Pacific 
in  its  entire  gamut  from  its  marine  mammals  down  to  its  microscopic 
plants.  And  the  problem  is,  be  it  noticed,  one  which  concerns  in  the 
main  extra  territorial  waters.  In  its  very  essence  it  is  international. 

The  merest  glance  at  a  quite  different  aspect  of  our  problem  as  a 
whole  must  now  be  taken ;  that  namely,  of  the  infiuence  of  the  ocean 
as  a  geographic  feature,  upon  the  peoples  inhabiting  its  appertinent 
lands. 


The  illustrative  question  chosen  is  that  of  possible  seasonal  weather 
forecasting  from  scientific  studies  on  the  ocean  and  its  superincumbent 
and  contiguous  atmosphere.  Metereology  and  oceanography  have 
already  advanced  far  enough  to  justif}^  the  hypothesis  that  in  general 
weather  variations  for  a  given  land  area  might  be  foretold  some 
months  in  advance  on  the  basis  of  adequate  knowledge  of  atmospheric 
and  oceanic  conditions. 

The  enormous  practical  importance  of  such  possibilities  for  agricul¬ 
ture,  water  supply  and  so  forth  is  so  obvious  as  to  need  little  comment. 
The  only  point  I  enlarge  upon  is  the  much  greater  relative  importance 
of  it  in  the  future  than  at  present,  especially  for  a  semi-arid,  sparsely 
populated  region  like  that  of  much  of  western  North  America. 
Unforewarned  water  and  crop  shortage  will  be  a  much  more  serious 
matter  generations  hence  when  the  population  of  this  region  shall 
be  much  denser  than  it  is  now. 

To  the  naturalist,  then,  the  problem  of  the  Pacific,  while  indeed 
international,  is  so  because  it  is  part  of  a  much  larger,  interpeoples 
problem.  And  successful  handling  of  it  is  conditioned  upon  the 
creation  among  the  peoples  concerned  of  what  may  be  called  an 
interpeoples  and  an  interracial  consciousness.  Such  a  consciousness 
would  have  to  rest  on  all  the  five  sectors  of  man’s  nature  mentioned 
above :  the  economic,  the  emotional  and  imaginative,  the  religious  and 
philanthropic,  the  rational,  and  the  political. 

Otherwise  and  more  succinctly  stated,  the  problem  is  one  of  basing 
the  political  unity  of  nations  on  the  biotic  and  ethnic  unity  of  peoples, 
making  large  use  to  this  end  of  the  common  Merest  the  peoples  have 
in  those  port  Mis  of  naUire  which  are  the  external  groundwork  of  their 
lives. 


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